Lola Willis - Poet

02/26/2025

Game Widow

Scaling your fortress,
brick by brick,
I shift fingers
groping for a crack
in cold granite,
read each bony bud
as scrambled Braille.

In your fractured rafters,
dust dove-struck plumes
and settles, bronze bells
unsung since they were hung,
but the chimes are coming.
Iron files at the battlements,
rattling your quiet keep.

I cure on a stone-slab throne
and witness volleyed tallow-fires
lighting your castle walls bright
as a wedding night bride,
fists frantic, thirsty weapons
gripped till clashing
throes have quenched them.

I’ve sewn virgin silk
to a flag fallen
and drawn prayers
over cooling wounds
that cry for more wars.
Wind fails on the watch towers,
angel anathema.

I vow my snow-feather hands
death too,
palms cast numb,
warmth foreign.

02/20/2025

02/18/2025

Lunch with Mom, Afternoon Showers

Knees locked like broken clocks,
septarian steps shallow
where parking lot puddles recede,
hands lily-wilted pinch down
the sagged hood of her windbreaker
hose-green.
Restaurant door might as well be
cross-country, bone-breaking trek,
joints pressed by low-pressure temperatures
and grating rain.
Old mother makes it
without a cane.

02/10/2025

"A well written poem is the greatest defense against stage fright." - Taylor Mali (the poet) on performing poetry

Interview on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1c3vpEWCQTb70L8RZ63Jq3?si=uMiC0AdpT-OU5bdjeQkfdg

The Poetry Space_ · Episode

02/10/2025

From a prompt...To write a piece inspired by the sounds around you in this moment.
---

Window Unit

$150 a month for a single-wide on two acres near East Elementary. You came home from the ice plant smelling of spray-can-cancer every weekday and of mown grass or turpentine on the weekends when your boss had you do his ass-crack work. A bunk and crib fit like chipped bricks for the kids. Floor mattress for you and me right next to the 5000 BTU GE duct taped in the window, ran and ran and ran through each warping Louisiana night, blew cold mold spores over our spilled nakedness and damp sheets knotted at our feet. A/C from the lowest shelf at Lowe’s, clinking, tinkling, sweating more than the twisted mutt on the floor. Cool constant swallowing whine we fed with our fights, our crying, our filthy nuptials on repeat. So much pulling of hair, ripped wife-beaters, buttons popped like eyes, skin slapped persimmon too-ripe…the hum stark white. Have you thought as I have, mortgage paid, pjs and a neatly shared duvet—we’ve never been able to sleep quite right without a fan.

01/13/2025

Midsummer of Adam

Lush of oily aubergine, skin silken unbroken, give to lips a song hoarding selfish sunlight, warms to drips coated thick. And split pomegranate, eyes shining over garnet coves. Snags the breath in stitches, heady muscadine rising like steam from a summer vine, catch as the stems twist. A king speaks secrets into the soil, outgrows a tune tense with fantastic cries that shifts the winds and parts the seas. No one to witness the meeting of the trees.

01/10/2025

An honor like no other, to work with the word machinist, Jimmy Ray Davis Poetry, to create this exceptional piece of multimedia design. Please enjoy this amazing work!! 🌹🙏🌹

01/10/2025

Prompt:

Writer, be brave.
There is wisdom
in the frontiers
of your pain.

01/08/2025

Ellie's poetry is alive with sharp, shocking imagery that is both assaulting and breathtaking at the same time--the perfect blend of stunning.

It's a privilege to follow your work, my friend! ~~Lola